Sunday, November 9, 2008

Thursday we had a chance to visit Factory Design Labs in Denver. The most obvious difference between Factory and the two previous firms we visited is that Factory is a larger firm. They have around 100 employees, while Anabliss had 6 and Ironton had maybe 10.

The firm is located in Cherry Creek, which is a very nice area. The building itself is brand new and beautiful inside and out. Everyone was diligently working while we were there, but we did get a chance to speak with several people. The designers seemed to be split into small teams according to the client project they were working on. There was a sense of camaraderie that was apparent between everyone who works there.

My favorite part was getting this super-sweet Bjorn Borg sticker with Factory's logo on his shorts. Thanks to everyone at Factory!

Thursday, November 6, 2008

I found the below images researching the idea of unboundedness in mathematics.

The first one is the graph of a calculus function. It's an elegant, curvilinear line amonst a bunch of straight perpendicular lines. As x approaches infinity f(x) can always be found between the shaded region. This I realized after a little closer inspection of the image, which I think is a little too math-y.

The next image is a section of the Madlebrot set. When computed and graphed on the complex plane, the Mandelbrot set is seen to have an elaborate boundary, which does not simplify at any given magnification. This qualifies the boundary as a fractal. An important characteristic of fractals is that they exhibit self-similarity. Not just that, but unbounded self-similarity, you can zoom infinitely in or infinitely out and they remain similar or identical in structure. This could be an important addition to the philosophy of unbound.

The next image has to do with oscillation. As it approaches point p, the wave oscillates infinitely many times without converging with itself around point p. Which is pretty cool. I could possibly see a version of this wave function image as maybe providing a sort of frame for the unbound logo. I could widen the dark area and put my logo inside, or even enlarge the image and use it as a bg for an entire page.

Anyways, I ended up creating versions of both the fractal image and wave function image in Illustrator. I made a 1200x1200 background image of the fractals first and used it on unbound. I didn't hate it. Then I made a version of the wave function image at 1200x1200. So far I definitely like it. It's the one I used as the background. I made the other background image into a sort of footer-banner decoration.

The last image is an example of a fractal tree. It exhibits many of the same self-similarity aspects that fractals do through the method of unbounded branching. This branching concept also appears in interactive narrative and game design theory. It needs a little work, but it could be a nice addition to the concept.